Voicemail is a popular telephone service feature, and is often included in the price paid for telephone service. When a called line with voicemail functionality does not answer or is busy, a call can be handled by a voicemail system. A voicemail system can store recordings and/or announcements for a user. When a call is passed to a voicemail system, the voicemail system can play one or more recordings and/or announcements for the calling party or a generic message and can prompt the calling party to leave a message, for example, a spoken message. The voicemail system can record the calling party's message and store the message, for example, as audio data in a storage device. Call data associated with the message, for example, the calling party's telephone number, the date and time of the call, and the like, can also be stored by the voicemail system and associated with the stored message. Some voicemail systems also allow calling parties to leave alphanumeric messages for a called party. In any event, the voicemail system can store the message or data and associated call data.
Among the close to 100 million cellular telephone service users in the United States, a growing trend includes replacing terrestrial telephone services with cellular telephone services. In the event that a user determines to replace other telephone service with a cellular telephone line, a cellular telephone service may be the user's only telephone number. As such, voicemail systems associated with cellular telephone services can be relied upon by many users to report all missed telephone calls, whether those calls relate to personal or business matters.
The increased reliance upon cellular telephone service has been accompanied by a corresponding increased demand and increased reliance upon other cellular telephone features and functionality, for example, text messaging, email, Internet browsing, data transfer, and other features. As reliance upon and demand for cellular telephone services and voicemail increases, demand for enhanced voicemail services will likely continue to experience a corresponding increase.